SCENERY DESIGN

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SCENERY DESIGN

• The purpose, procedures, and techniques for Stage
  Scenery

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PURPOSES OF SCENERY

• The most important purpose of scenery is to
  provide a place to act
• The set should define the time and setting of the
  play
• Time
• Historical period
• Season of year
• Time of day
• Changes in time during the play

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PURPOSES OF SCENERY

• Setting
• Climate / geographical conditions
• Socioeconomic situation
• Cultural background
• Political-governmental system of area
• Interior or exterior
• Rural or urban
• Real or imaginary

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PURPOSES OF SCENERY

• Reveals interrelationships between people
• Rank
• Stations, influence
• Positions in their families, office or community
• Provides a way to focus the audiences attention
  on the actor
• Elevating on a platform or stairs
• Framed by a doorway
• Triangular blocking with furniture and actors
  with focus on the middle

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PURPOSES OF SCENERY

• Indicates the style of the production
• Romantic
• Epic
• Fantasy
• Creates a mood and atmosphere
• Bright yellows, oranges and pinkslight cheery
• Dark, cool colors, grays, blacks heavy serious

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STAGING CONVENTIONS

• Most sets are realistic depictions that follow a
  few staging conventions
• Almost all furniture faces the audience
• Exterior doors are usually offstage right
• Interior doors are usually stage left or upstage
• Fireplaces tend to be placed on stage-right walls
• French doors are usually stage left
• Living-room and dining-room furniture often
  appear in the same area

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• Effective scenery and design should
• Match the authors intent and the directors
  interpretation
• Always serve the actor, never dominate him/her
• Complement the costumes, never clash with them
• Never become an obstacle course for blocking
• Work toward consistency, avoiding distractions
• Aid the action of the play, not hinder it
• Fit the needs of the play
• Simple in design, construction, and shifting

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DEVELOPMENT OF SCENERY

• RENAISSANCE
• Stage design as we know it started in Italy in
  the mid 1400s
• Actors performed against painted scenes (often
  showing perspective)
• Raked stage developed
• Stage slanted upward toward the back
• Where terms upstage and downstage came from
• Development of Proscenium and
• Backdrops
• revolving stages
• Shutters (movable flats on tracks )

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• RESTORATION
• In England, most acting was on raked aprons
• Proscenium was thick wall with doors on either
  side for entrance and exits onto apron
• EARLY NINETEENTH CENTURY
• Scenery made to suit the individual play
• Creation of typical scenes
• Interior canvas drops and painted wings
• Exterior painted trees, fountains, gates, paths
• Entrances parallel to back wall
• Street scenes painted buildings, store windows,
  signs, street lamps

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• MID-NINETEENTH CENTURY
• More accurate historical and realistic scenery
• Realism brought changes
• Gradual shrinking of the apron
• Addition of orchestra seats
• Elimination of painted backdrops
• Closing of wings giving illusion of left and
  right walls

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• TWENTIETH CENTURY
• Naturalism developed
• Photographically accurate sets
• Scenery sometimes distracted audience from the
  action
• Selective Realism
• An impression is better
• Convey an idea of locale not exact replica
• Plastics (3 dimensional structures and Cut-outs
  (two dimensional profiles) placed against a
  drop/sky/etc
• Proscenium stage called forth wall theatre an
  invisible wall where audience observes action
• Dramatic lighting introduced

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TYPES OF SETS

• BOX SET
• Two or three walls built of flats
• Covered by a ceiling
• Give the impression of a room
• Gives a set
• depth and
• naturalness

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• UNIT SET
• Made up of several units that can be moved,
  turned and interchanged to create several
  settings
• Usually made with several flats in combination
• Very practical for schools
• Present one-act plays program
• Multi-set plays
• Built units can be reused to fit almost any play

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• PERMANENT SET
• Staging rarely changes during the play
• Basically three kinds
• Single permanent set
• Controlled lights help determine
  locale-outside/inside
• Set with many openings
• Doors, windows, curtains, background, etc are
  placed behind openings to simulate scene changes
• Multiple set
• Modified permanent set
• Several distinct acting areas separated with
  dividers like platforms or railings

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• SCREEN SET
• Consist of two fold and three-fold flats
• Forms walls against a drapery background
• Cover openings/furnishings for quick scene
  changes
• PROFILE SETS
• Called minimum sets
• Flats form the entire perimeter (cyclorama)
• Colored lights gobos suggest changes
• CURTAIN SETS
• Uses curtains for
• backdrop of play

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• PERIAKTOI (PRISMS)
• Three six foot flats
• Equilateral or isosceles triangles mounted to a
  wheeled carriage
• Can be pivoted for changes
• 4 8 needed for a set
• Doors, windows, etc hang between two Periaktoi
• Good for schools with no fly space or wing space!

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Periaktoi
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Periaktoi used in Sound of Music

• Outside scene

• Outside villa

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• Marias Bedroom

• Villa Living Room

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• Outside convent

• Inside convent